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Fuel from discarded plastics comes with a high cancer risk
- SubiculumCode 4y agoFuck this noise. I hope I'm not overreacting, but shady af and evil.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoI have a crazy idea: Why don't we build more walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods and better public transit?
- WirelessGigabit 4y agoBecause many people don't want that. For example, many people do not want to live on a street full of stores. Walkable? Yea, absolutely. But noise? Horrible. 4AM a truck backing up because of a delivery. 3AM some drunk guy singing and hanging against the trash bins. And noise the WHOLE day. I'll take my suburban space where I need to take the car to go and get groceries. And how am I going to walk home with my packet of Costco toilet paper? There is no way I am paying a premium for some fancy cornerstone which stocks only the 2 roll packages.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoI'm sorry but how did we leap from more such neighborhoods to gun to your head in specific to move there against your will?
- yetihehe 4y agoHow did we leap from "I think it is bad idea because:" to "gun to your head in specific to move there against your will"?
- DoreenMichele 4y agoThey framed it in first person terms. It's a non sequitur argument to say "not everyone wants to live there" ergo "no, we can't have more of this." It doesn't follow. There are people who desire to live that way and can't find it. There's room for both suburbs and more walkable neighborhoods.
- atahanacar 4y ago>There are people who desire to live that way and can't find it. Then there are people who don't even know an alternative exists. The car dependency is so ingrained in their brain since birth that a "walkable city with no need for a car" makes no sense to them. Here are some "arguments" I heard from Americans: *How will I get my groceries? *What about cold weather? *I don't want to wait an hour for a bus. *What about the people with disabilities? *Public transit increases crime *My freedom! *I don't want to be in the same bus/train with other people *I don't want to walk after a day of work *I want to go out drinking at night (even remembering this one makes me laugh hard) What's even worse, due to all the Hollywood influence, even people here started to think suburbs are good planning.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoAmerican suburbs are not actually the result of good planning. They were born of a mix of factors, starting with a significant housing shortfall and large numbers of recent WW2 veterans who qualified for help buying a house. This was not really planned per se. In some sense, it kind of just happened. Sorry to hear people in other countries are being influenced in that way.
- atahanacar 4y ago>Sorry to hear people in other countries are being influenced in that way. What is even funnier is, people here who actually think American suburbs are good wouldn't even last 3 days living there. They would either get hit by a car while trying to walk, starve to death because they don't own a car to go buy groceries or die of boredom. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but hear me out. Turkish people have the tendency to create dense living areas. Cities are very dense. Even in villages, 4-5 story apartments are common. Suburbs are mostly apartments, too. Single family houses are very rare in cities. 70% of the people live in apartments[0]. We like to be close to other people due to culture and the feeling of safety. We even have proverbs like "don't buy a house, buy a neighbor" signifying the importance of neighborhood. Many neighbors have eachother's keys in case of emergency. This creates a lifestyle where you have to interact with many people ever since you are born. Imagine being used to that lifestyle, but living in the American suburbs. [0] https://interaktif.konda.com.tr/turkiye-100-kisi-olsaydi https://interaktif.konda.com.tr/turkiye-100-kisi-olsaydi
- atahanacar 4y agoWalkable and suburban is not mutually exclusive. And a huge majority of the noise comes from cars anyways. I understand the desire to live on a street with no/little stores, which is very common in walkable cities. >There is no way I am paying a premium for some fancy cornerstone which stocks only the 2 roll packages. Me neither. In walkable cities, big supermarket chains adapt so you get the benefits of scaling without driving to a warehouse style monstrosity. For example, I have 5 "supermarket"s (3 different chains) in 10 minute walking distance and never had to drive for groceries. If I ever have to buy anything more than I can carry, which is once or twice a year at max for a party or whatever, I bring a "bazaar car"[0] (sorry, don't know what it's called in English). For daily groceries, I just stop by for 3-5 minutes (or sometimes 10 if I am that indecisive) and get what I need on my way back home. And this city is very car centric, but it is still walkable thanks to mixed use zoning basically everywhere and okish public transit. Again, this doesn't mean there aren't any quiet residential areas. Most residential areas with a 2 minute walk to the nearest shopping street are pretty quiet. Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to change their habits. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=pazar+arabas%C4%B1&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=pazar+arabas%C4%B1&iax=imag...
- 4ggr0 4y ago> I bring a "bazaar car"[0] (sorry, don't know what it's called in English) It's called a shopping caddy or shopping trolley[0] :) Not a native speaker myself either but I also wondered what the english word is. Maybe a native speaker can chime in an tell us if there's a slang term for these caddies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_caddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_caddy
- atahanacar 4y agoAh yes, thanks. That's it. Now that I've think about it, I've heard that word before, but couldn't remember it for whatever reason. For people looking to buy one, I suggest getting triple-wheeled ones (3 wheels on both sides). They can easily climb stairs while pulling them so you don't have to pick it up every time.
- derda 4y agoYou can live in an unban environment without these problems. Maybe not often found in the US, but where I live (Germany and most of the rest of Europe) it is certainly possible. 4AM deliveries and drunk people are not a reality in most neighbourhoods. I visited family in a small village and the noise from the combine harvester on the fields and trucks of harvest going by was significantly higher then the background noise on my street at night. Also nothing stops you from still owning a car (but using it less), or taking a car-share or cargo bike to Costco. Thing is noone forces you to live in a dense urban environment. Everyone should have the freedom to choose, while paying the actual cost (with externalities). Obvious Plug for not-just-bikes on youtube. Great channel that goes into good detail on these matters.
- linguae 4y agoWalkable communities don't mean stores on every street. An example would be the residential neighborhoods of Tokyo. There are plenty of quiet streets with homes, which are generally a mixture of single-family and multi-family units. Commercial businesses tend to be clustered around train/subway stations (which Tokyo has an extensive network of trains and subways) or along arterial streets, which tend to support higher-density land uses. I lived in a company dorm room in Kawasaki (just across the river from Tokyo) for eight months and was never once was awakened in the wee hours of the morning due to noise. In fact, the neighborhood was very quiet despite it being far denser than any American suburb I've been in.
- cinntaile 4y agoI live in a neighbourhood as the one described by the GP. In Europe. I experience none of the issues that you mention.
- adrianN 4y agoYou present a false dichotomy.
- atahanacar 4y agoBut then how are we going to segregate people based on income and race without explicitly doing it?
- DoreenMichele 4y agoI dunno. Larger units with more amenities on the top floors? I'm sure they can dream up some creative solution. PS: I think you forgot your sarcasm tag. It looks like this: /s
- atahanacar 4y agoWhat sarcasm? American suburbs do exactly that.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoI'm aware. But I assume you don't actually want more of that because of your other comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35369203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35369203
- midoridensha 4y agoThis is one of those cases where it can be hard to tell if it's someone's honestly-held opinion or not. In this case, I think not just because of the exact wording. However, there's no shortage of people, including on this very forum, who have this exact opinion and write very similar things whenever discussions about American suburbs come up. Of course, they don't quite say "I hate black people and don't want them living near me", but they really do say they don't want "poor" people or other undesirables living anywhere near them.
- atahanacar 4y ago>However, there's no shortage of people, including on this very forum, who have this exact opinion and write very similar things Yeah. At first, I was going to reply with "the sarcasm is obvious", then I remembered that some people just fail to notice sarcasm, then I also remembered that they fail because there are enough lunatics on internet who would actually unironically write something like my comment. Also, I will assume you are a fellow railfan, because of your name.
- thedrbrian 4y agoBuild them all you want , just don’t try to force people into them or don’t ban the car before putting them amenity’s in. Cart before the horse type stuff.
- DoreenMichele 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35369004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35369004 FYI: I have never suggested we ban cars.
- lnsru 4y agoStupid question, but why not to burn plastics directly generating heat and electricity? With proper filtering it shouldn’t be very poisonous.
- Loic 4y agoWith proper filtering, the problem here is that in a typical refinery, you do not filter the kind of compounds released by these new plastic handling processes. You filter out mercaptan, H2S, CO2 using post processing gas treatment like amine cycles. This is because you have a very clear process line, which has not changed in the past 100 years or so. You basically separate from the raw oil what is already good from what needs more processing. What needs more processing is simply "cut in small pieces and possibly recombined" to get more out of your feed. The new processes try to "keep" more good molecules from the "plastic feed", this leaves more room for loss of good molecules for the chemical use downstream but bad for the environment if not filtered out. Burning everything to make electricity/heat is what you have everywhere in Europe (at least) and this cuts "everything in small pieces" and as such you can use normal gas treatment down the line. The gas treatment is expensive but effective. Update: I am surprised the EPA is so lax, the US is way stricter than the EU for normal emissions from refining.
- WirelessGigabit 4y agoIt already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jillesvangurp 4y agoIncinerating waste is already common and when done properly does not result in a lot of toxic emissions. Technology for this has been in use for decades. When done poorly, the result is a lot of toxic fumes. Which is perhaps the issue this article is hinting at. Of course, generating fuels from plastic that you create from oil is still transferring fossil deposited carbon straight into our atmosphere. Euphemistically labeling that as a bio fuel does not change that and is more than a bit disingenuous/misleading. And probably intentionally so by those advocating this. There's nothing green or climate friendly about this. Dumping it a landfill is literally better for the environment because at least then the carbon goes back into the ground. Of course you do get some local pollution with that. So, it's not a perfect strategy. Incineration with carbon capture might be feasible but is probably going to be expensive. Of course getting rid of a lot of single use plastics is better still. The best carbon capture strategy is simply leaving it in the ground and not messing around with it.
- perihelions 4y ago- "This article is co-published with ProPublica" Other thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34955049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34955049 ("Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health (propublica.org)"; 129 comments)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- credit_guy 4y agoThis is absolute BS. All chemical plants produce intermediate products that have high cancer risk. They just don't release them in the atmosphere. If any refinery decided to produce fuel out of discarded plastic, they would be subject to the same EPA rules as before, they would not be allowed to vent toxic or carcinogenic gases in the atmosphere anymore than they are allowed now.